


Driftwood

by callowyn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-07
Updated: 2010-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-12 20:36:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/128782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callowyn/pseuds/callowyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam doesn't sleep well at Stanford, but he never stops to ask himself why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driftwood

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授权翻译】浮木（兄弟粮食/短篇完结/原作：callowyn）](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2427635) by [summerroad7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerroad7/pseuds/summerroad7)



Sam doesn’t sleep well in Stanford. He tosses and turns on the extra-long mattress that’s still too small for him– _freakin’ Sasquatch_ , Dean would say if he were here, but this isn’t some crappy motel in the middle of Wisconsin and Dean isn’t here. Sam listens to his roommate’s bitching when their air conditioner breaks, and just barely stops himself from saying _but we have an air conditioner_. There are no cockroaches here, no mysterious stains on the floor or cigarette burns on the beds, and there are no lines of salt at the windows.

Sometimes he wakes up with his heart going double-time, reaching for a knife that’s not under his pillow, and the empty space makes his throat close up. Sometimes he wakes up with tears on his face and no idea when they got there. Sometimes he doesn’t want to wake up at all.

Jess makes it better, sometimes, and when he's holding her soft warmth he usually stays asleep, until one night in January when he goes to sleep cold and wakes up shaking. _What’s the matter?_ Jess asks, brushing her fingers across his forehead, smiling and worried and so innocent it makes Sam sick. Sam shrugs, says _nightmare_ , knowing Jess won’t clench her jaw and pretend it doesn’t mean anything, but something in him hopes that this time she will.

 _Are you homesick?_ she says instead, and the question hits him like a punch in the gut. Every school, his whole life, sometimes six in a single year, there was always someone, a teacher or a guidance counselor or a well-meaning lunch lady who looked down at him, _new kid_ , back when he was short enough to look fragile. _You must miss your old school,_ they said, pity in their eyes, _you must be homesick_ , and Sam always shrugged and flashed them a smile while his mind kept up a bitter litany of _I haven’t got a home_. But back then he slept: even if it meant cockroaches and having to share a bed with Dean, even if they spent half the night in a silent tug-of-war over the blankets while Dad snored beside them and Sam woke up with Dean’s elbow in his face, Sam slept like a child.

Sam doesn’t sleep well in Stanford, and Jess, this beautiful innocent ignorant girl he might be in love with, Jess manages to reach into him and pull out the answer without even knowing she’s doing it. _Are you homesick_ , like that question even makes sense when the longest Sam’s spent in one place was the six months after he was born, but _Dean isn’t here_ and suddenly, suddenly he realizes that maybe he had something to leave behind after all.

Two years later Sam wakes up because there’s someone in the house, can’t help himself from thinking some _thing_ , and he grabs a baseball bat because after two years of pretending to be normal he doesn’t have anything else. His body remembers how to fight in the dark but then he _knows_ , he recognizes that mix of leather and cheap shampoo and that damn cocky grin shining brighter than anything else in the room. Sam remembers, and even as his mouth shapes an incredulous _Dean_? there’s something else in the very back of his mind, something he’s been hiding for years and that he’s been too stupid to recognize his whole life. _Easy, tiger,_ his brother says, and a voice in the back of Sam’s mind whispers, _home_.

 

 

 


End file.
